0001046 - Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in North Africa and the Middle East

This year, the course is divided into two parts. The first part, taught by Professor Ersilia Francesca, will concentrate on Gender, Rights, and Social Change in the MENA Region. The second part, taught by Professor Sara Borrillo, will focus on Islamic feminism and activism.

As a complementary activity, the course will include a workshop on Gender Activism, Queer Struggles, and Feminist Futures in the MENA Region.

FIRST PART
TITLE: Gender, Rights, and Social Change in the MENA Region

The purpose of this class is to familiarise students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and women studies in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Four main institutional domains (family, labour market, civil society and state) will be explored in order to understand how gender relations are both defined and transformed in the region. Preserving human rights, combating discrimination against women and LGBT+ communities, and enhancing equality of life for women and men are cornerstones in developing a sustainable world. Women’s and gender based inequalities remains a significant global concern with important connotations for the MENA region. Women across the region are restricted by gender norms, limiting their physical mobility, access to the labour market, and both household and public decision-making. Incremental progress has been documented within the region: areas such health, education, labour have seen significant improvement in gender-related indices; laws and policies on gender equality are growing, women’s representation in government and in national programming has increased. Yet, in the midst of these gains, gender gaps in the region persist and part of recent progress is at risk of regress, due to the intersection with further global and regional crises factors, including political and economic upheavals, conflicts, occupations, climate change and extreme environmental events. Furthermore, the patriarchal character of governments reinforces unequal socio-cultural norms and practices through laws, justice mechanisms and socio-political institutions. Thus has a negative impact non only on women’s status but also on the recognition of the rights of LGBT+ person in the region. Many governments in the region reject the concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” altogether. Same-sex sexual relations are criminalised in most of the countries in the region, and few countries recognise the rights of homosexual and transgender persons. However, amid this difficult scenario female and LGBT+ activism is defying state and social stigma, thus contributing to changing gender norms in the MENA region. Tackling the issue of gender equality in the Mena region, four areas will receive separate attention: 1. Health, sexuality and reproductive rights 2. Learning and labour market 3. Freedom from Violence and Access to Justice 4. Participation and Leadership. 5. Gender inequality and climate change.

SECOND PART
Islamic Feminism and the Feminist Theology of liberation (6h)

This section examines some of the central themes and modes of engagement that characterize the global discourse of Islamic feminism. In particular, it explores the thought, as well as the intellectual and political trajectory, of Asma Lamrabet, one of the most influential contemporary proponents of Islamic feminism in Morocco and beyond. The section further analyses the methodological foundations and key arguments of her work, which seeks to demonstrate the compatibility between gender justice and Islamic ethics through a contextual and gender-sensitive hermeneutical reading of Islamic sources. In doing so, it highlights the potential of her approach to not only deconstruct Orientalist stereotypes about Muslim women but also bridge the divide between modernist and traditionalist understandings of religion and society, both in Muslim-majority contexts and within Muslim diasporic communities.

Gendered, queer and feminist artivism in the SWANA region (6h)

This section engages with the theoretical debates surrounding gendered, queer, and feminist artivism in the SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) region in the aftermath of the 2010–2011 revolutionary uprisings. The nexus between revolutionary change, cultural production, and struggles for gender justice provides a productive analytical lens through which to interrogate the socio-political transformations set in motion by the revolutionary wave across the Arab world. Rather than treating artistic practices as merely reflective of political developments, this section approaches artivism as a site of knowledge production, political contestation, and emancipatory praxis, where dominant gender regimes and hegemonic power relations are simultaneously challenged and reimagined. Through the analysis of selected case studies, it explores the extent to which artivist practices contribute to destabilizing the patriarchal social contract and to articulating more egalitarian modes of citizenship, belonging, and political participation. Particular attention is devoted to the capacity of these creative interventions to generate alternative political imaginaries, futures, and new grammars of embodied resistance that reshape the horizons of political possibility within contemporary Arab societies.